Laws Of Friendship

Wisdom Nugget: "One who has unreliable friends soon comes to ruin, but there is a friend who sticks closer than a brother."

Source: Photo Pin

Friends are the next outer circle of relationships after family members. Unlike family who you did not choose, friends maintain an on-going contact with you because they want to. You go through life's journey together as a family because you all live in the same town and have grown through the years together.

Friendship develops through a common activity - work, school, sports, church, etc. Unless you have a reason to spend time with each other on a regular basis you will never get to know each other well enough. A bonding takes place out of sharing a common experience and seeing how each of you reacts differently to the same circumstances. So what would be the dos and don'ts of good friendship?
Although there are no "exact" rules of friendship, there are some guidelines that can help create more enriching, productive, and long-lasting friendships. Many people treat friendships as if they were somehow less valuable than family or romantic relationships, but actually all friendships have the same capacity to enrich our lives and increase our general happiness. In fact, the good book says "there is a friend that sticks closer than a brother". The rules of friendship are important to being happy whether you seeking a romantic partner or not, and you will be more successful in creating a quality relationship with anyone in your life if you can approach making friends from a position of independence and happiness of your own to start with. However, real friendships are not created by legal, social, or monetary obligations, and instead are usually held together only by mutual interests, respect, love and shared values...Hmmm, did you say SHARED VALUES?

Let me give you a picture of life without shared values or Principles: James Patterson and Peter Kim, in "The Day America Told the Truth", 1991 posted this question: "What are you willing to do for $10,000,000?" Two-thirds of Americans polled would agree to at least one, some to several of the following:
Would abandon their entire family (25%)
Would abandon their church (25%)
Would become prostitutes for a week or more (23%)
Would give up their American citizenships (16%)
Would leave their spouses (16%)
Would withhold testimony and let a murderer go free (10%)
Would kill a stranger (7%)
Would put their children up for adoption (3%)

Compare that to a man of Principle called Daniel: "But Daniel determined that he would not defile himself by eating the king's food or drinking his wine, so he asked the head of the palace staff to exempt him from the royal diet."